Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Kosta is God's Gift to Me from Across the Ocean

"K" is a hard letter because I've previously written K is for Kennedy Club Fitness (where Kosta can often be found swimming and talking to friends) and It's Kite Flying Day -- both for this blog. My husband's name also starts with K, and Kosta's story deserves a post here, as well as in previous articles I've written about his life.

Many people have seen Kosta Radisavljevic around the North County at Kennedy Club in Atascadero, Covenant Presbyterian Church, KPRL Coffees, and North County Tea Party meetings and events. Few people really know him, and no one knows him the way I do. Few people realize he spent time in a Communist prison in Serbia as a child. Few people have heard the story of his escape. Some have worked with him in Southern California. Some of you knew him at UCLA when we were students. Here is the Kosta I know.

I met him when we lived in the same dorm, Dykstra Hall, at UCLA in 1962. He was active in Bruin Christian Fellowship (a chapter of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.) Another Christian student introduced us at dinner one night. It soon became apparent that Kosta was a magnet in the dining hall for Christian students from any organization and their roommates and friends. Our table seemed to have all the fun. Kosta made everyone, no matter what their religion, feel welcome to sit with us, and we all became friends.

Kosta was not raised in a church. He was born in Serbia. It took the grace of God to get him out of Serbia. Kosta tells that story himself in the videos I made of him in this article, Enemies of the People: Life in Communist Yugoslavia. I also show you photos of his childhood and provide a bit of the background for the videos. This article and its videos will help you understand a bit of how Kosta became who he is. I was born in California and had a sheltered and happy childhood. It's hard for those of us who did to even comprehend what Kosta's family went through.

Kosta did not become a Christian until his family had emigrated to Canada. He went to a Christian Boarding School, Prairie Bible Institute, and it was there he became a believer. In 1959, Kosta's family finally got their green cards and moved to the United States legally. Finally, about 1961, he arrived at UCLA, where he majored in physics.

We became fost-adopt parents of two older children, siblings, Sarah and Jason in 1982. Kosta loved to play with the children, as you can see above. The photo was taken shortly after the children came. We loved traveling with the children and seeing the country together. We looked forward to seeing the children grow up and start families of their own, but that didn't happen. Jason died in an accident when he was just 14. We were both crushed. Below you see Kosta speaking at Jason's memorial service, which was held outside our church.

We also lost Sarah, though her death was much later. You can read the story of her life and death here. After Jason's death we moved to Templeton to start a new life closer to Kosta's parents who needed more of his help. He was very busy during those first ten years helping me with my book business and then caring for his mom in her last years.

Now all our parents are gone. Occasionally we have time to get out and have a bit of fun. The photo below was taken by a tourist we had been talking to at Leffingwell Landing in Cambria.

I am very thankful that after almost 53 years of marriage, we are still together and still have each other. Whatever Kosta may be to others, he is still my best friend. I'm hoping that we will still be allowed a few more years together.

If you enjoyed this post, please share it. The sharing buttons are just above the comment box at the end of this post. The photo below is especially designed for pinning.

This is my eleventh post for the 2016 AtoZchallenge, a Blogging Challenge for the month of April, 2016. My theme is Things You Can See or Experience in North San Luis Obispo County. Here are links to the other posts if you missed them.

Follow Me on Twitter

Follow this blog by email.

Check Out Sales at Dover

Search This Blog

Affiliate Disclosure

Barbara Radisavljevic, the owner of http://paso-robles-daily-photos.blogspot.com/ is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc or its affiliates. See more

Share this on Flip

Paso Robles Scenes

I Love My Prime!

Followers

Follow Me On Pinterest

I'm a City Daily Photo Blogger

About Me

I
have lived in and loved California my entire life and now reside on its beautiful Central Coast. The
longer I live in San Luis Obispo’s North County, the more contented
I become here. Most of my waking hours when I'm not occupied with chores, you will find me blogging, reading, walking around with my camera in hand, tending my garden, or dabbling in the local art scene. I hate shopping, and do it only if we will starve if I don't.

Google+ Badge

I'm a Survivor

Cookie Disclosure

Our website uses cookies to improve your user experience. These are placed by third parties for the purposes of enabling you to make comments, share with social media, and enable our affiliates to know you were referred by our site if click on product links.

Some third party cookies gather analytical information which is not personally identifiable so that we may know general things, such as what countries our traffic comes from and which pages were viewed. Please do not use this site if you object to these cookies being used.

PRIVACY POLICY

Your PRIVACY is important to us. We do not personally collect or save any information you put into the forms on this site. Since Blogger is a Google service, Google's Privacy Policy applies to any forms or Google Advertisements you see here or any forms you fill in to subscribe to our blog.

Links to our affiliates take you to their sites where their privacy policies apply.

We are in compliance with the requirements of COPPA (Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act), we do not collect any information from anyone under 13 years of age. Our website, products and services are all directed to people who are at least 13 years old or older.